


Office Politics

by statusquo_ergo



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Massive fluff, You've been warned, kind of satire but not as nuanced, rachel is in on the plan it's all good, stupid fluff, there's mention of harvey/paula but it gets trashed pretty hard, this is far and away the worst thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-12-22 04:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: Alex and Donna are on a mission.





	1. Alex

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is in no way their fault, but kho and accol and I were talking right at the start of Season 7 about what we expected out of Alex, which somehow turned into “Hey what if it’s really obvious to him that Harvey and Mike are lusting after each other,” which turned into…this. Essentially me taking out some of my frustration with Season 7 so far.
> 
> If you’re familiar at all with _Psych_ , Alex behaves a lot more like Gus (who is also played by Dulé Hill) than he does like, well, Alex, so just remember this story takes place in a parallel universe and everything will be fine.

If there’s one thing Alex Williams knows about office politics, it’s that they’re pretty much the same everywhere he goes.

Sure, there are different veneers for different cultures; “a long lunch” as a Bratton Gould senior partner meant two hours instead of one, whereas during his years as an associate, it meant fifteen minutes instead of ten, and “casual Fridays” for the District Attorney meant being seen in public without a suit jacket whereas his assistants wouldn’t be sent home to swap out flats for heels and button-downs for button-fronts, but there are certain tenants that the world of law offices seems inclined to keep intact across the board.

“No interoffice relationships” is one. “Keep your private life private” is another.

Pearson Specter Litt seems pretty keen on breaking both.

To put a more personal spin on it: Yeah, sure, he and Harvey haven’t done a _great_ job keeping in touch since Harvey went back to Pearson whatever back in 2002, but it would’ve been nice for him to mention, when he solicited Alex to leave a pretty comfortable senior partnership for a firm that, quite frankly, has seen better days, that he and his protégé, who also happens to be the firm’s prize junior partner, are _romantically involved._

Just as a professional courtesy.

Considering how blasé the rest of the staff is about Harvey and Mike being attached at the hip, they’ve probably been together awhile; maybe it just didn’t occur to Harvey to bring it up.

Speaking of, Harvey is on his way out of Mike’s office—which Alex is given to understand was Harvey’s office before his latest promotion, not that that _necessarily_ has anything to do with anything—and it’s…fine Harvey didn’t tell him about them, really, but Alex can’t let him go without a _little_ bit of teasing.

“It’s cute,” he says, stopping Harvey in his tracks as he walks past.

“What’s cute?” Harvey asks, smiling as though he’s already in on the joke, and Alex nods at Mike.

“Your puppy.”

Harvey’s face falls immediately. “Alex—”

“It is!”

“Shut up,” Harvey mutters, ducking his head and continuing on back to his own office.

What a weird response. Are they actually under the impression that their relationship is somehow a secret? For crying out loud, Alex already knows and he’s only been working here for a _week._

Whatever. Alex _is_ here to work, to prove himself worthy of the title of senior partner. Worthy enough that Harvey will reconsider his offer of name partnership, when the times comes.

He doesn’t have time for this.

\---

Seriously, though, how have those two never been brought up on liability charges?

Alex isn’t keeping a running log or anything, but he’s pretty sure that in the three weeks he’s been working at PSL, he’s seen Harvey in Mike’s office more than he’s seen him in his own. Either they’re working every single one of their cases together, which is a ridiculously inefficient use of manpower, or they’re slacking off on their work to spend time together, which is not only a waste of manpower but a blatant violation of company policy.

And if trying to figure out what’s going on between the two of them wasn’t eating up so much of his time, Alex wouldn’t be spending his lunch hour pretending he has a legitimate reason to pay Donna a surprise visit.

“Mister Williams,” she says sweetly, looking up from her desk as he knocks on her door and leans in. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

That’s fair; they haven’t had much reason to associate and he’s still sort of coasting on Harvey’s recommendation. Hoping for the best, he puts on his friendliest smile and takes a step forward.

“Alex, please,” he replies. “Miss Paulsen…you’ve been here awhile.”

“Harvey and I have worked together for seventeen years,” she clarifies, “and I assure you, he has a healthy respect for my value to this firm.”

Nodding once, he ventures a few more steps into the office. “I’m sure you’re irreplaceable,” he agrees. “But that’s not what I was getting at.”

“Oh?” Folding her hands in front of her face, she rests her chin on them and glances up at him coyly. “Whatever do you mean?”

She looks like she’s waiting for the first opportunity to shut him down as hard as she possibly can. He’d better not drag this out any longer, if that’s where her head is at.

“I just mean that someone as observant as you are has probably picked up on a few things,” he cajoles. “Some…happenings around the office.”

It’s impressive how quickly her manner changes from coquettish to grave as she lowers her arms, pulling her laptop closer with one hand and a legal pad with the other.

“Have you seen someone being harassed?” she asks, reaching around for a pen. “Don’t you have the phone number for Human Resources?”

“No, no,” he assures her. “Nothing like that.”

She narrows her eyes. “Then…”

Alex glances over his shoulder, double checking that Harvey isn’t about to swoop in and interrupt.

“What’s the deal with Harvey and Mike?”

She still looks suspicious, but surely it isn’t possible that he’s the only one who’s noticed. Surely it isn’t. It can’t be.

“‘The deal’?” she repeats.

“You know,” he clarifies. “How long have they been together.”

Her answering expression is difficult to parse, but he’s beginning to fear he’s stepping into the middle of something ridiculously complicated with his eyes only half open.

“Harvey hired Mike as his associate when he was promoted to senior partner,” she says, and he shakes his head, trying not to show his growing frustration.

“That’s…not exactly what I meant,” he tries, and she narrows her eyes again.

“Mike is engaged,” she says slowly, and Alex raises his eyebrows.

“And I don’t know the details, but I do know that Harvey is seeing someone.”

Uh.

Okay then.

“Well,” he says, widening his grin excessively and taking a step backwards, hoping against hope that she’ll cut him some slack, “my apologies; I’ve clearly made a pretty careless error, and I’d appreciate it if you would avoid bringing this up to Harvey.”

Turning toward the door, he walks as quickly as he can without making it too obvious that he’s dying to run like hell.

“Wait.”

Shit…

Pasting the grin back on, he turns to face her, clasping his hands behind his back. For her part, Donna looks like she’s contemplating performing a craniotomy to see what’s going on up there.

Looks like she’s figured it out without the need for major surgery.

“You and Harvey have been friends for a long time,” she informs him.

This is a trap. Somehow.

“Fifteen years,” he agrees.

“Mm-hm,” she brushes him off, and he decides not to speak again until directed. “As his friend,” she carries on, “you want him to be happy. And as his employee, you want him to be…capable. Sound of mind.”

She cocks her eyebrow, and he nods.

When she’s through scrutinizing him, she leans back in her chair, tenting her fingers before her like some sort of devious mob boss.

“Mister Williams, I think we may be of some use to one another.”

\---

“Compile a manifesto on Harvey Specter’s love life” isn’t exactly the sort of task Alex expected to be assigned when he accepted Harvey’s offer to work at PSL, but he’s a good lawyer and he’s fabricated justifications for stupider shit in his day. This one isn’t even that hard to weave; if Harvey, the firm’s lead managing partner, is happy, and Mike, his unofficial second in command, is happy, then they’ll do better work, and the firm will benefit. If the firm does well, all the firm’s employees will do well, and if they’re doing well, they’ll work harder, more effectively and more efficiently, and the firm will do even better, which will make Harvey happy, which will make Mike happy, which will make Harvey happy, et cetera, et cetera.

Sure, that’ll work.

The task of actually gathering information to fill out the report is a little more daunting.

Or maybe not so daunting. People like to celebrate things, and lasting a month at a new company easily qualifies for such a thing. And dinner with work friends is a completely appropriate way to celebrate a work anniversary.

Harvey will have no reason to be suspicious. He’s sure of it.

He knocks on Harvey’s office door.

“Alex,” Harvey says, looking up from the files sprawled in front of him. “What can I do for you?”

Alex grins. “I was on my way out for the night, and I was just hoping I could persuade my old pal Harvey Specter to accompany me for a celebratory dinner.”

Harvey smiles back and taps the barrel of his pen against his desk. “What are we celebrating?” he asks carefully.

“My one month anniversary, of course,” Alex says. “And I’m positive you can think of a great place around here to grab a bite worthy of such an auspicious occasion.”

As his smile becomes plasticine and flat, Harvey clasps his hands together and lowers his gaze to somewhere around Alex’s chest.

“Alex,” he hedges, “I’m glad you’ve stuck with us this long, and I hope you stick around a lot longer, but I also hope you’re not under the impression that we’re going to go back to the way things were when I left the DA’s office.”

When he left…

No fucking way.

Harvey seriously thinks Alex is hitting on him?

Interesting, though, that he didn’t try to fend him off by explaining that he’s already seeing someone, _or_ that it would be inappropriate for them as coworkers to go back to their old…creative stress relief techniques. There’s one point against the stability of his current relationship, and one in favor of his willingness to pursue a relationship with an underling; all told, it’s a promising start.

“As much fun as that was back in the day,” Alex assures him, “when I said ‘dinner,’ what I actually meant was dinner. It’s been great working with you again, but we haven’t had much of a chance to catch up.”

His trepidation easily dispelled, Harvey smiles widely and lays his pen down, pushing the files into an embarrassingly messy stack and standing.

“I like the sound of that,” he says. “Felidia, my treat.”

Alex smirks. “I like the sound of _that._ ”

The walk over is quick and painless, the chatter banal and mildly amusing; at the restaurant, the hostess seats them with professional efficiency and practiced politeness and the wait staff tends to them with the speed of a well-oiled machine, the end of the work day clearly in their sights.

Over branzino and prime beef, Alex contemplates the most effective avenue to take in presenting his case.

There’s really no way to do this subtly. Then again, why bother?

“I was talking to Donna yesterday,” he says. “She tells me you’re seeing someone?”

Harvey’s lips curve into possibly the smallest smile Alex has ever seen and his eyes dart away. “We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of weeks,” he admits.

It’s helpful that he isn’t reluctant to talk about it, but it seems that in doing so, he’s no longer the cocky, authoritative guy Alex has known all these years, putting on airs more suitable to an embarrassed teenager with a crush than a grown man engaged in a serious relationship. Something’s definitely fishy about the situation.

“And I haven’t heard a thing about…her,” he guesses, which makes Harvey shrug as he leans back in his chair.

“It’s not the sort of thing that comes up a lot in the workplace,” he says. Fair enough. “Anyway you don’t know her.”

More avoidance, huh? So the relationship is either incredibly serious or incredibly inappropriate.

“Who is she?”

Harvey smirks. “Her name is Paula. She’s…really great, we understand each other better than anyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with before.”

“She must be something else,” Alex says as he spears a bite of fish on his fork. “She a lawyer?”

“Psychiatrist,” Harvey corrects. Alex raises his eyebrows curiously; they sure didn’t meet at a business conference.

“How’d you manage that?”

“She was my therapist,” Harvey brushes off as though it’s no big deal.

Hold the fucking phone.

His _therapist._ Harvey is dating his _therapist._

Once he’s done gawping, Alex lays his fork down on his plate and folds his hands together at the edge of the table, thinning his lips.

“Harvey.”

Harvey arches his eyebrows and hums inquisitively as he takes a sip of wine; Alex waits for him to put his glass down and clears his throat.

“You’re dating your therapist.”

“Ex,” Harvey asserts, waving his hand. “We didn’t start dating until the mandatory waiting period had expired.”

“‘Mandatory waiting period’?” Alex parrots. “Harvey, you are _dating_ your _therapist._ Why were you even in therapy in the first place, did something happen that you aren’t telling me about?”

Harvey frowns, and yeah, it was an indelicate question, but if they’re gonna start weighing inappropriate actions versus inappropriate actions, Alex thinks he’s still coming out ahead.

“I was having panic attacks,” Harvey says tersely. “A lot was going on.”

Fine, he’ll leave it at that. But _still._

“Alright,” Alex says, “but Harvey, tell me you know how fucked up this is. I’m not saying it was a bad idea to go to her in the first place, when all of whatever that was was going on and you needed help; good for you for taking the initiative, but there’s a reason doctors aren’t supposed to date their patients. There’s about a hundred of them.”

“I’m not her patient anymore,” Harvey retaliates, “and like I said, we waited two years. It’s perfectly legal.”

“I’m not saying it’s illegal,” Alex argues, “I’m saying it’s _unethical._ What kind of treatment could she have been giving you if she was falling for you while she was doing it? How were you _hearing_ her advice if you thought you were falling for _her?_ And now you’re trying to be a _couple;_ Harvey, for crying out loud, the foundation of your relationship is you paying her to let you talk about your problems.” Shaking his head, Alex can’t help but sneer. “It’s totally inappropriate, and you know what, it’s damn creepy.”

Folding his arms across his chest and crossing his legs, Harvey leans back and rolls his eyes. If he’s going to start acting like a damn child about all this, then Alex isn’t going to get anywhere by pushing the issue further, but he’s gotten plenty of useful information for his “Harvey’s Love Life” file and maybe, if he’s lucky, Harvey will give some actual thought to what a colossal mistake he’s making now that someone’s pointed it out to him.

It might not seem like one right now, but it’s a step in the right direction.

He’ll update Donna tomorrow.

\---

“Donna, do you have the transcripts from the Schiff trial?” Alex asks as he walks briskly into her office, holding an empty file folder under his arm. It’s symbolic.

“Right here,” she offers without looking up, holding out a thick stack of papers. “You free for lunch?”

“For you? Anytime.”

“Great,” Donna mumbles as she paws through her desk drawer, pulling out a few stray pages. “Rachel’s coming too, by the way.”

Rachel Zane, the associate? Alex didn’t know she and Donna were close enough to be lunching buddies.

“She’s having a rough week,” she explains, even though Alex didn’t ask.

Rachel stops by Donna’s office about two minutes later and they all walk out together, heading for some bistro called The National in a hotel Alex always thought was just an upscale apartment building. Donna and Rachel stick close to one another, maybe because Rachel is having a rough week, and Alex hopes they’ll all find something in common to talk about when they sit down.

Donna orders a salmon salad, and Alex orders the branzino.

“Tuscan kale salad with chicken, please,” Rachel says to the waiter, and then the moment he’s gone, to the table at large: “Men are idiots.”

That’s a little harsh. But at least it explains her rough week, more or less.

“They are,” Donna soothes, unfolding her napkin on her lap.

Rachel dunks a soft piece of bread into a dish of olive oil, and that seems to be all either of them has to say about that. Alex blames the awkwardness of the silence for the fact that the first thing that comes to his mind to say is so incredibly stupid:

“Harvey sure is.”

Her eyes widening dramatically, Donna makes a throttled noise, drawing her hand across her neck, _kill it,_ and Alex frowns. Rachel’s rough week is obviously because of some personal issue, and Harvey’s dating his therapist ( _ex-_ therapist), so then…

“I _know!_ ” Rachel exclaims, and Donna’s head whips around to her so quickly that Alex is surprised she doesn’t hurt herself. She continues to goggle until Rachel takes pity on her in the form of a condescending stare.

“Come on, Donna, I might be in love with Mike but I’m not stupid. I see how they look at each other.”

In love with Mike?

_Mike is engaged._

Oh lord. This is worse than a cheesy primetime high school soap opera; the office politics at this firm are a fucking joke.

Alex clears his throat. “Your rough week,” he prompts.

“Was because I broke up with my fiancé,” she clarifies before turning to Donna. “Which I did because I didn’t exactly want to spend the rest of my life married to a guy who spends ninety percent of his time lusting after someone else. And yes,” she informs them both, “it hurts, and it sucks, but I’m a grown woman, it was my decision, and they’re both dumb as a sack of doorknobs but this has been going on for years and it’s about time they opened their goddamn eyes already.”

So this is an interesting turn of events.

Apparently, Donna feels the same. Drumming her fingers against the table, she looks off to the side to gather her thoughts and then back to her companions with a salacious grin.

“So can we count on you to join our merry cavalcade?” she asks Rachel, who furrows her brow minutely.

“What’s the mission?” she asks. Donna quirks her brow and Rachel’s lips part as the realization hits her, her understanding quickly segueing into amusement. “You guys are trying to get them together.”

“It’s in everyone’s best interest,” Alex puts in, just to cover his bases, but Rachel shakes him off, her smile growing wider.

“You don’t need to justify it to me,” she assures him. “Besides, this sounds like a way better extracurricular than sitting at home alone in the dark watching old SVU marathons, and if I don’t have something besides work to spend my time on, I’ll go insane. Now.” She crosses her arms and lays them on the table, leaning forward conspiratorially. “What’ve you got so far?”

Donna leans forward as well and begins to fill her in, barely pausing to thank the waiter when he brings by their lunches, and it’s not as though he’d admit it out loud to anyone, but honestly, Alex wishes high school had been this much fun.

“You’ve been busy,” Rachel compliments them when Donna’s finished. “So what’s next?”

Donna glances at Alex, and he offers a shallow shrug. It’s obvious to all of them what needs to happen next; the difficult part is figuring out how to make it so.

Alex picks at his fish.

Rachel takes a bite of her salad.

“Mike seriously has no idea?” Donna bemoans, and Alex idly wonders how long she’s been pushing them at each other.

“No idea Harvey feels the same,” Rachel confirms. “Although I don’t know _how._ ”

Pursing his lips, Alex takes a moment to weigh his options. Well, he’s already this deep; might as well lean into it.

“It might have something to do with the fact that Harvey’s new girlfriend is his former therapist.”

Donna’s stare turns blank as Rachel opens her mouth to speak, then closes it and draws back; taking another stab at it, she raises her hand for emphasis but still can’t quite find the words, narrowing her eyes and wrinkling her nose disdainfully.

“His therapist,” Donna says as she finally regains her footing. “His new girlfriend is his old therapist.”

“Does Mike know?” Alex asks Rachel, hoping to get the conversation back on track.

“No, he can’t,” Rachel says immediately. “He can’t, he would’ve told me. He would’ve, he would’ve _vented_ to me.”

Alex nods; makes sense. Harvey _would_ go for an emotional guy like that, someone free to express himself and what he really thinks of the shit going on around him; from everything he’s learned about Mike since coming to PSL, it’s obvious they’ll be good together.

“His _therapist,_ ” Donna repeats. “Holy…shit, I had no idea things had gotten that bad.”

In an effort to be comforting for some hardship or slight Alex isn’t privy to, Rachel lays her hand over Donna’s and rubs her thumb along her knuckles; Donna nods slowly, still staring off into space.

“I’ve gotta talk to him.”

Rachel nods back.

“You got this.”

\---

Around five, which Alex is given to understand is the time that normal people end their normal workdays, Rachel knocks demurely on his door and peeks her head into his office.

“Donna said you had the files for the Lewin case?”

Rifling through the filing cabinet under his desk, Alex finds them with relative ease, holding them up without making any sort of effort to give them to her.

“Rachel,” he says thoughtfully as she steps closer, “why is Donna so interested in Harvey and Mike? Being together?”

Rachel bites her lip and looks down at her wringing hands.

“It can’t just be because she’s his assistant,” he prompts, and she shakes her head.

“She…she thought, for a long time, that there was something there,” she admits. “Something between them.” She shrugs as though this isn’t something she should be talking to him about, which, to be fair, it probably isn’t, but he appreciates it all the same.

“She thought he was the guy for her,” she goes on a little wistfully, “and every other man she was seeing was just a placeholder. But,” she looks down and locks her eyes with his, “eventually she figured out that he was never going to see her that way, the way she wanted him to, the way she deserves to have a man see her, and…she just wants what’s best for him.” Her smile turns sort of sad, and she shrugs. “I know it might be kind of hard to understand, but it’s the truth.”

It’s the stuff of fairytales, really. “If you love them let them go” and all that; “I just want him to be happy even if it’s not with me” and other assorted clichés. Evidently Rachel and Donna have that in common, although Rachel seems to be less interested in making herself a martyr over it. Maybe something to do with her youth, maybe she’s a little less tired.

“It’s okay,” Alex assures her. “I get it.”

They assess one another for a minute or so, and he hands her the Lewin files, which she takes with a murmur of thanks.

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

\---

Two weeks and exactly thirteen varyingly heavy-handed efforts at pushing them together after Rachel joins the conspiracy, Harvey and Mike are no closer to figuring out that they’re head over heels for each other than they were when Alex started at PSL, and everyone’s nerves have stretched to the point of breaking.

“What if we just locked them in a closet and threw away the key?” Rachel proposes desperately, dropping her head into her hands and very nearly falling into her tuna salad. Donna shakes her head.

“They already spend enough time alone together,” she says, stirring her iced tea. “All they’d do is bitch and moan about us, and then I bet Mike would just pick the lock.”

Alex nods. “That does seem like the sort of thing he’d know how to do.”

“It is,” Rachel confirms.

Donna looks awkwardly at the ceiling, and Alex clears his throat.

Rachel rolls her eyes.

“He says he taught himself when he moved in with Trevor in case he ever got locked out of the apartment,” she says. “It was a ‘safety thing.’”

“ _Bullshit,_ ” Donna coughs.

“Well, yeah, but don’t tell him that, he thinks he’s clever.”

Donna snickers, and Alex smirks, but neither of them can think of a fitting thing to say.

A weird sort of tension settles in the air as they all shut up and finish their lunches, the unnatural halt in conversation murmuring that they’re playing a game that always seems to turn out for the best in movies and on TV but people need special training and lots of practice to do reliably in real life and even then it’s kind of a crapshoot. Rachel and Mike made a classic couple on paper, but that didn’t work out as everyone expected, and Donna and Harvey are certainly compatible from the outside looking in, but there are plenty of reasons that’s never gone anywhere, and what do the three of them have? A feeling? A sense? An assumption is what it is, an educated guess.

Donna pays the bill because it’s her turn, and they walk back to PSL with their spines held extra straight and their steps a little too measured; at least they get an elevator car all to themselves.

Around the thirty-sixth floor, Alex, as the newest team member and the one with the least to lose, makes a bold proposition:

“We should just ask them.”

Flabbergasted for all of five floors, Donna eventually manages to recover enough to ask:

“Are you insane?”

Simultaneously, Rachel murmurs to herself, “Couldn’t hurt.”

Donna offers her a scandalized look, and she shrugs.

“I don’t mean shove them into a witness chair and put them under oath, just like, ‘Hey, guys, we were wondering if you’d noticed…’”

The elevator door opens and Alex hums contemplatively, drawing Donna’s ire away from Rachel.

“You are, you’re _insane,_ ” she hisses at him. “They’ll deny it, and then they’ll refuse to ever talk about it ever again! The whole point of this is for them to _get together,_ not…break up before they have a chance!”

“I don’t know about that,” Alex muses as they walk down the hall. “I’m pretty sure I hit a nerve with Harvey when I told him his relationship with his therapist was a really terrible idea, and according to you, they’ve been fighting each other off for what, seven years? It sounds like they could use a shove in the right direction.”

“Yeah,” Donna admits, “I’m pretty sure you did, and so did I, but—but _still!_ ”

“Oh my god,” Rachel mutters, stopping short and resting her hands on her hips.

It doesn’t take a moment to figure out why; a few yards away, in Mike’s office, Harvey sits on the couch, shoulders hunched as he tosses a baseball from hand to hand. Across the room, behind his desk, Mike lounges with his feet propped up next to his laptop, on top of a stack of papers; they’re talking, that much is obvious, and while it isn’t what one might call an “intimate” scene, their body language isn’t quite professional.

“Does Harvey’s office have a black mold infestation?” she seethes. Alex laughs until Rachel stalks off towards Mike’s door, because surely she isn’t doing the thing he thinks she’s about to be doing. Surely not.

Donna rushes after her and apparently yeah, that’s exactly what she’s doing.

“You!” Rachel snaps, flinging Mike’s door open and pointing at him. He looks up at her perplexedly, pausing in the middle of his sentence (“ _But if we—_ ”) and looking past her to Donna and Alex.

“Me,” he agrees blandly, and Rachel’s mouth thins as she tightens her lips.

“Date him,” she commands, pointing back at Harvey without bothering to look in his direction. “Please, for the love of god, do us all a favor and just… Why are you smiling like that.”

Alex shifts his gaze from Harvey, who’s obviously biting down on a grin, to Mike, who’s not putting in quite as much of an effort, and gets the feeling they’re all the targets of a somewhat long-running practical joke.

“What,” Rachel presses. “What happened.”

“Oh, nothing,” Mike assures her. “I just won fifty bucks, is all.”

“Hang on,” Harvey cautions. “Alex, you were in on this?”

Alex leans back a little. “I…guess?”

Harvey tosses the baseball into the air. “Thirty bucks.”

What the fuck…?

“Someone had better explain to me right now what’s going on,” Donna cuts in as Mike and Harvey continue smirking at each other. Not a moment later, she narrows her eyes and glares bitterly between them.

“How long?”

Rachel’s eyes widen and she clenches her hands into fists as Mike and Harvey exchange thoughtful gazes, a pretty obvious put-on, and Alex wonders which of the doors he’s walked through today diverted him into the Twilight Zone.

“Today’s Wednesday?” Mike postulates innocently, and Harvey nods.

“That’d make it four days?”

“Yeah, I guess it would.”

“Four days it is, then.”

“Wait a _minute,_ ” Rachel bites out. “Mike, _why_ didn’t you tell me?”

“Harvey,” Donna adds, “why didn’t you tell _me?_ ”

“Isn’t this against the code of conduct?” Alex asks, mostly rhetorically.

Mike and Harvey just keep smiling those innocent little smiles.

“I think management is okay with it,” Mike says. Harvey nods.

“Filed the paperwork myself.”

Check, and mate.

A mix of satisfaction and confusion settles on Rachel’s face, coming out more like frustration than anything else, and she excuses herself, muttering something of which the only audible words are “time” and “fucking.” For her part, Donna glares between the two of them and jabs her finger at Harvey with a firm promise that they are _going_ to be discussing this later, and _don’t_ think you’re getting out of it, mister.

Alex shifts his weight awkwardly as Donna stalks past him.

Harvey tosses the baseball between his hands and looks up at him.

“Have you finished drafting the Olivet contract?” he asks.

Alex clears his throat. “Yeah; did you need it for something?”

“Have it on my desk in ten.”

Backing slowly out of the room, Alex nods.

“You got it.”

Mike lowers his feet to the floor and Harvey tosses him the baseball.

This place has the weirdest office politics in the whole goddamn world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A button-down is a button-front (a.k.a. button-up, dress shirt, Oxford, etc.) shirt with extra buttons fastening down the collar.
> 
> [Felidia](http://felidia-nyc.com/) is a very well-regarded and quite expensive Italian restaurant on 58th Street between Third and Second Avenues. The branzino and prime beef are over $40 each.
> 
> [APA Code of Ethics](http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx) (Section 10.08 Sexual Intimacies with Former Therapy Clients/Patients)
> 
> Alex, Donna, and Rachel go to lunch at [The National](http://www.thenationalnyc.com/), which is a stylish and moderately expensive restaurant in a hotel called [The Benjamin](http://www.thebenjamin.com/). (The branzino at The National is $32.)
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://statusquoergo.tumblr.com) if you like.


	2. Harvey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter runs concurrent with the previous one, spanning the same time frame but mostly focusing on different events (although a few scenes feature in both). They are…equally ridiculous.

If there’s one guy from his time at the District Attorney’s office who Harvey never really expected to see again, it’s Alex Williams.

He kept tabs on him, in a purely professional way; watched his ascension from assistant district attorney to associate at Bratton Gould, senior associate to junior partner. He would’ve tried to bring him in when all that shit went down with Allison Holt, except for the part where she made just enough vaguely threatening references to her friends at the DA’s office to imply that getting Alex involved would unearth some untoward information he and Harvey would prefer to keep under wraps and Harvey might not have actually _talked_ to Alex in years, but he does _like_ the guy, and he wasn’t, and isn’t, interested in screwing him over.

Once Alex became a senior partner, though, any attack levied at him would be an attack on the firm, and if Bratton and Gould found out she had been the initiator, she would be out on her ass, no questions asked.

Harvey figured poaching him to PSL would send a pretty strong message about their place in the field.

He’s only been at PSL for a week, but Alex’s client list and assorted friends and “friends” at other legal offices have already proven to be one hell of an asset, not to mention the quality of his work is exceptionally high, even for a senior partner. It’s a damn shame Bratton and Gould are a couple of racist shitheads, or Alex would have had his name up on the wall years ago and there wouldn’t have been a chance in hell that he’d have taken Harvey up on his partnership offer.

Alright, so maybe not such a shame.

One of these days, he’s going to have to take Alex out to lunch or something so they can properly catch up. In fact, if it wasn’t already three forty-five, he’d invite him out today.

In the meantime, Alex has a little smirk on his face as Harvey passes him on his way out of Mike’s office, which is either a great sign for PSL or a terrible sign for Harvey as a person.

“It’s cute,” Alex says as Harvey walks by.

“What’s cute?” Harvey asks, smiling warily as he gets the sense that this has nothing to do with work, and Alex nods over his shoulder towards Mike.

“Your puppy.”

His puppy? That’s absurd, Mike hasn’t been Harvey’s puppy in years. Mike hasn’t been Harvey’s puppy _ever._ Yes, he was _a_ puppy when Harvey picked him up from the slums and tossed him into the bullpen, but he was never explicitly _Harvey’s_ puppy. Yes, he was technically Harvey’s associate, but he did work for other attorneys at the firm, Harvey knows he did, and other associates, too. And, yes, there was that one time that Louis stole Mike for his stupid project after Harvey lost that stupid bet, and Harvey went through hell and high water to get him back, but that was only because the other associates didn’t _get_ him the way Mike does and he would have had to waste precious time breaking them in before they could be productive enough to actually be _helpful._ Besides, Louis only got Mike because he won the bet, and Harvey couldn’t exactly let _that_ stand.

“Alex—” he begins to correct him, but Alex only laughs.

“It is!”

Harvey knows that tone; Alex won’t be swayed from his opinion, no matter how convincing Harvey’s argument, and it’s the middle of the workday, and they don’t have time for this.

“Shut up,” he mutters, walking briskly back to his own office and leaving Alex in his metaphorical dust.

All in all, not the classiest way to end a debate, but it’s fine. Harvey will get him next time.

Back to the grind for now.

\---

Before Harvey gets a chance to make good on his plan to invite Alex out for a meal, Alex takes the initiative to knock on his office door late one night and lean in with the casual air of a guy about to head home.

“Alex,” Harvey says as he caps his pen. “What can I do for you?”

Alex offers a cheery grin, and maybe Harvey isn’t giving him _enough_ work. “I was on my way out for the night,” he says, “and I was just hoping I could persuade my old pal Harvey Specter to accompany me for a celebratory dinner.”

Oh boy. He should’ve been expecting this, actually; he and Alex never formally, officially terminated their arrangement at the DA’s office—the “oh shit look at the time we’ve been working twenty hours straight let’s get in a quick fuck before we both lose our minds from stress” arrangement that ninety percent of the other ADAs were also engaged in, to be particular about it—but somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that Alex might genuinely expect it to still be in play. Especially now that Harvey is his _boss._

God dammit.

“What are we celebrating?” he asks cautiously, prepared to divert the conversation at a moment’s notice.

“My one month anniversary, of course,” Alex answers at once. “And I’m positive you can think of a great place around here to grab a bite worthy of such an auspicious occasion.”

Thinning his lips and flattening his smile, Harvey clasps his hands together and lowers his gaze to a spot below Alex’s face but well above his waist.

“Alex,” he ventures, “I’m glad you’ve stuck with us this long, and I hope you stick around a lot longer, but I hope you’re not under the impression that we’re going to go back to the way things were when I left the DA’s office.”

Was that too much innuendo? Harvey didn’t mean it that way, really. For his part, Alex blinks owlishly for a second, and it occurs to Harvey that he might legitimately have been inviting him out to dinner the same way Harvey intended to invite Alex out for lunch; that is, without the sex.

Hopefully he has the good sense to keep this from becoming embarrassing. For either of them. Harvey in particular.

“As much fun as that was back in the day,” Alex says after he’s collected himself, “when I said ‘dinner,’ what I actually meant was dinner. It’s been great working with you again, but we haven’t had much of a chance to catch up.”

Oh thank god.

Harvey smiles widely and lays his pen down, arranging the files on his desk into one pile that needs to be addressed first thing tomorrow morning and another that can gather dust for a little while.

“I like the sound of that,” he says, scrambling for the name of a restaurant nice enough to fit the occasion but not so intimate as to imply that there’s still a chance for them to fall back on old habits. “Felidia, my treat.”

“I like the sound of _that,_ ” Alex replies a little coyly, but that’s just his natural tone, it doesn’t mean anything.

Besides, Harvey has a girlfriend.

They make the requisite small talk on the way to the restaurant, which Harvey guides them to with practiced ease, trying not to think about how awkward things could become at the office if Alex is actually interested in making a play for him. It’s probably nothing to worry about; they had a good working relationship, too, back in the day, and they got on well even out of bed. Or out of the bathroom, as the case may be, and more often was. The point is, he’s just being paranoid.

When their food arrives—prime beef for Harvey, branzino for Alex—Alex purses his lips and looks down at his food as though he’s mustering the courage to broach a difficult topic.

“I was talking to Donna yesterday,” he says eventually, which seems innocuous enough; Harvey is glad they’re getting along. “She tells me you’re seeing someone?”

Is he sizing up the competition? No, it’s an innocent enough question. Harvey smiles, maybe a bit shyly, and looks away. “We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of weeks,” he discloses. Oddly enough, that only seems to make Alex more suspicious, maybe even…frustrated, for some reason. They haven’t spoken in years, it’s not as though Harvey’s love life is any of his business.

“And I haven’t heard a thing about…her,” Alex presumes, and Harvey puts down his fork and leans back in his chair.

“It’s not the sort of thing that comes up a lot in the workplace,” he reminds him. “Anyway you don’t know her.”

Harvey didn’t think it was too revelatory a statement, but Alex nods nonetheless.

“Who is she?”

This’ll stop the flirting, for sure. “Her name is Paula,” Harvey says. “She’s…really great, we understand each other better than anyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with before.”

“She must be something else,” Alex admires, stabbing his fish. “She a lawyer?”

“Psychiatrist,” Harvey clarifies.

Alex raises his eyebrows. “How’d you manage that?”

“She was my therapist,” Harvey says breezily, which makes Alex’s eyes bug out of his head just about the same way Louis’s did, and if that’s going to be everybody’s reaction, Harvey maybe needs to work on his delivery.

Alex lays down his fork and folds his hands on top of the table. “Harvey.”

Raising his eyebrows, Harvey hums around a sip of wine, and Alex clears his throat.

“You’re dating your therapist,” he repeats flatly.

“Ex,” Harvey brushes him off. “We didn’t start dating until the mandatory waiting period had expired.”

“‘Mandatory waiting period’?” Alex snaps. “Harvey, you are _dating_ your _therapist._ Why were you even in therapy in the first place, did something happen that you aren’t telling me about?”

What the fuck kind of question is that? What kind of social graces has working at Bratton Gould sapped out of Alex that he would ask something so personal as why Harvey had to go to _therapy?_ Even considering the…risqué notion of dating his former psychiatrist, Harvey’s pretty sure he’s still got the upper hand here, as far as morality goes.

“I was having panic attacks,” he bites out. “A lot was going on.”

And that’s all you’re getting about that, so be grateful and shut the fuck up.

“Alright,” Alex cedes, because he’s not a total moron, “but Harvey, tell me you know how fucked up this is. I’m not saying it was a bad idea to go to her in the first place, when all of whatever that was was going on and you needed help; good for you for taking the initiative, but there’s a reason doctors aren’t supposed to date their patients. There’s about a hundred of them.”

Yeah, Harvey thinks, good for me. Going to see a therapist was a healthy thing to do, something not everyone can admit to needing, and the one he picked was such a good match that even now that he doesn’t need to see her anymore, he’s _choosing_ to, and in return she’s choosing _him,_ because they _fit._

“I’m not her patient anymore,” he points out sourly, “and like I said, we waited two years. It’s perfectly legal.”

“I’m not saying it’s illegal, I’m saying it’s _unethical,_ ” Alex argues, and Harvey remembers now why he thought it was such a good idea to hire him in the first place: He’s one tenacious sonofabitch.

“What kind of treatment could she have been giving you if she was falling for you while she was doing it?” he lists. “How were you _hearing_ her advice if you thought you were falling for _her?_ And now you’re trying to be a _couple;_ Harvey, for crying out loud, the foundation of your relationship is you paying her to let you talk about your problems.” As Alex shakes his head, Harvey finds himself wishing that he would save that tenacity for court. “It’s totally inappropriate, and you know what, it’s damn creepy.”

Creepy? He thinks Harvey’s love for Paula is _creepy?_ Harvey doesn’t need to listen to this shit. Folding his arms across his chest, he leans back and rolls his eyes, hoping the admittedly childish nature of the response is direct enough to clue Alex in to how ridiculous he’s being. Because he is, isn’t he; being a lawyer is a tough job, time-consuming and stressful, and being a managing name partner is even harder, so if Harvey’s found someone in his life to love who loves him back, who cares about the technical details? How they met, the fact that their relationship was preceded by a legal “waiting period.” What the fuck ever, Alex should be _happy_ for him.

And that’s all there is to that.

\---

For convenience’s sake, primarily, Mike and Harvey sit together in Harvey’s office, Harvey at his desk and Mike on the couch, as they review the routine merger terms they plan to present to the representatives from Sheridan Deakins on behalf of Sciorra Barek Witt. His highlighter squeaking, Mike blazes through the tedious documentation as quickly as Harvey has come to expect, but if the number of times he’s interrupted his speed reading to look forlornly out the office door is any indication, something is weighing on his mind, and frankly, Harvey would rather get it out in the open before it bites him in the ass.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks at one such interruption.

“Huh?” Mike replies, and Harvey sighs.

“You’re distracted,” he says. “Why?”

Mike makes a sound between clearing his throat and coughing, and for about a second, Harvey is afraid he’s going to start crying. Instead, he looks at the floor and shrugs.

“Rachel broke off the engagement.”

So this is an interesting turn of events.

Not that Harvey has been keeping tabs on Mike and Rachel’s relationships status or anything, but of all his friends, associates, casual acquaintances, and well-wishers who are in committed relationships, he, and he suspects a number of other people, had really banked on the two of them going in together for the long haul.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says without knowing any of the surrounding factors, including whether this might have been the best possible outcome for both of them. “How are you holding up?”

Mike clears his throat. “It’s tough,” he says. “I really thought we were gonna make it.”

Well, these things happen.

No, Harvey can’t say that.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he requests, and when Mike nods firmly, he decides it was the right call. One brief, somewhat awkward silence later, he tries to ease the tension or something:

“You almost done with that agreement?”

Mike laughs.

Sure, that makes sense.

\---

Two days later, Harvey arrives at PSL at nine in the morning, as is his habit, having no reason to suspect that today will be particularly different from any other day.

Then he gets to his office.

It’s not that he’s never arrived to work to find some gift or unexpected token on his desk. It’s just that usually it’s flowers, or baseball tickets, or like, an Edible Arrangement. And it’s not that he doesn’t appreciate people giving him creative presents, thanking him for his services or trying to bribe him, which never works unless he was already planning to do the thing anyway, in which case it’s not a bribe so much as an unnecessary bonus, it’s just that, well.

This a little weird, that’s all.

Giving his desk an unnecessarily wide berth as he steps around to his chair, Harvey sets his briefcase down on the floor and picks up his phone warily.

“Hey, Mike, real quick, is it just me, or are there about a dozen cactuses in your office, too?”

\---

Two days after that, Mike raps on Harvey’s office door just after lunch, holding up a piece of pretty heavy-looking cardstock that’s too far away for Harvey to read properly.

“Is this about the Carlson Gaffney case?” Mike asks, waving the card a little.

“What about it?” Harvey parries. “I thought you said it was a slam dunk.”

“It was,” Mike says. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“About what?”

Mike walks up to Harvey’s desk and holds out the card, which reads “Congratulations” in some polished gold matte font fancier than simple script but not quite as elaborate as Old English Text.

“Something you want to tell me?” Harvey asks, looking up skeptically, but Mike only shakes his head.

“Your name was on the back of the envelope, so I…” He shrugs. “Never mind,” he says as he turns to go, furrowing his brow at the card.

“You’re welcome,” Harvey calls after him teasingly, and Mike waves him off.

It’s been a weird kind of week.

\---

They’ve been sitting at the conference table for about ten minutes when Mike starts to spin slowly in his chair. Harvey ought to reprimand him, probably, but he’s just about reached that point where nothing about this goddamn meeting matters anymore.

“You’re sure they said two o’clock?” Mike asks, making a pretty satisfying flicking sound as he thumbs through his files. Harvey checks his watch, as though that’ll help.

“That’s what it says on my calendar,” he confirms.

Mike takes his chair for another whirl.

“So how’s Paula?” he asks, tipping his head back and staring up at the ceiling as Harvey flinches.

It’s an innocent enough question, there’s no reason to be so disoriented. “Fine,” he says. “She’s got two new patient referrals this week, she’s keeping busy.”

Mike hums. “Cool.” He spins again. “But I meant more like how are you and Paula. How are you vis-à-vis Paula.”

Oh. Okay, that makes more sense.

“I’m good,” Harvey says. “We’re good. Everything’s fine.”

Certainly not at all fucked up, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not remotely creepy, and I definitely haven’t been thinking about breaking things off.

Mike nods. “Good,” he says.

Good? What’s that supposed to mean?

Harvey doesn’t ask, and Cohen and Ravell show up at the conference room at two-thirty; the meeting progresses without complications, and Harvey doesn’t think another thing of it except that when he and Mike leave the room and part ways, he catches Donna and Rachel side-eyeing them and scowling at each other.

Maybe he should have the water in the coolers tested.

\---

“Mike,” Harvey answers his phone cheerfully. He knows exactly what this call is about; frankly, he would’ve instigated it if Mike hadn’t beaten him to the punch.

“Look,” Mike says without preamble. “Harvey, you can monopolize my time during the week, you can make me take work home with me, you can even make me go with you to functions on the weekends to solicit new clients, but an emergency _work dinner?_ Just the _two_ of us? On a _Sunday?_ Can I have one _day_ to myself. Five _minutes._ ”

Harvey’s suspicions are as good as confirmed by Mike’s frustration, but the subsequent conversation is one better had face-to-face.

“Look,” Harvey retorts, only a little sarcastic, “if I promise not to talk about the firm, will you come anyway?”

“Do I have to?”

“Take my word for you, you’ll be glad you did.”

\---

Mike arrives at the restaurant at exactly eight thirty, drawing close to Harvey with a wariness that would never be acceptable from someone less familiar but on Mike is somehow sweetly endearing, given the circumstances. Harvey doesn’t usher them inside, having cancelled the reservation early that afternoon, instead guiding Mike to the corner of the little courtyard area farthest from the restaurant door.

“If I’d known this was supposed to be a date, I would’ve put more effort into my hair,” Mike says dryly, glancing over Harvey’s shoulder at the homey, ivy-covered façade. “Did Donna set this up?”

“That’s actually what I want to talk to you about,” Harvey confides.

“What,” Mike mocks, “you mean the fact that ever since Rachel broke up with me, she and Donna have been trying to get us together?”

“Oh, so you noticed it too.”

Mike clicks his tongue. “Not at first, but after awhile it was kind of hard to miss.”

Well that cuts out the need for about ninety percent of Harvey’s prepared speech.

“Can I ask you something?” Harvey asks whimsically. Mike makes an inquisitive noise, so he continues: “If you figured it out, why did you keep playing along?”

Not quite caught out, but obviously unprepared for the question, Mike looks him in the eye and shrugs. “Why did _you?_ ”

Ah, yeah. That. Harvey clears his throat.

“I’m pretty sure Alex has been in on it,” he says, unable to think of a more obvious way to avoid answering.

“I had a crush on you, you know.”

What the _what?_

Harvey balks dramatically and Mike nods off to the side. “I did,” he confirms, “from the first day you hired me. Up until around all that shit with Sidwell, actually, and then I kind of…forgot about it, I guess.”

 _Forgot_ about it? Harvey tries not to be insulted, but it’s not easy.

“Willful ignorance,” Mike corrects himself, which is much more acceptable. “Anyway that’s probably why I kept playing along, so.”

Pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes, Harvey sticks his hands in his pockets as he tries to sort through all the information at his disposal as quickly as he possibly can. It doesn’t go well as he keeps diverting back to the fact that Mike had, or possibly has, a pretty massive crush on him, a fact which is pretty telling unto itself.

“Alright,” he says, “how’s this. You and I go back to my condo for some takeout, and we can talk about how we want to move on from here.”

Mike shuffles back a step.

“Move on?” he repeats hesitantly. Harvey shakes his head.

“Let’s see how it goes.”

\---

The next morning, when Harvey wakes up, Mike is lying with the comforter covering half his face and doing nothing to conceal the fact that he’s biting down on a giddy smile.

“And a good morning to you, too,” Harvey says, raising himself up on his elbows and moving back to lean against the headboard as Mike stops trying to muffle his laughter.

“Sorry,” he says after he’s gotten himself under control and lowered the blankets, “just, my entire life, I never would’ve expected this.”

“Never set your sights particularly high, huh?” Harvey commiserates. Mike retaliates by reaching up to grab him around the back of the neck and drag him down into a kiss that’s technically exquisite and makes his face flush and all that, but also subtly reminds Harvey why he doesn’t typically engage in early morning sexual escapades before he’s brushed his teeth.

“Get out of my bed,” Harvey says, yanking on the pillow under Mike’s arm, and Mike laughs again.

It doesn’t take too long for them to get ready for work, all things considered, and they’re helped along considerably by the fact that Harvey can get in whenever he wants, and the conspirators surely won’t hold it against Mike if he comes in a little late as well, as long as they’re together. Anyway, Louis can handle running the firm by himself for half an hour, probably.

Mike watches speculatively as Harvey stands in front of his bedroom mirror, tying his necktie.

“It wasn’t good for you?” Harvey teases, and Mike shakes his head slowly.

“No—I mean, yes, obviously, you were there, you know it was, but that’s not what I was thinking about.”

“Good to know I left such an impression,” Harvey quips as he straightens his cuffs. Mike shakes his head again.

“Not that. I was thinking about Donna and Rachel.” When he meets Harvey’s gaze, there’s a mischievous spark in his eye that Harvey likes the look of and a quirk to his grin that Harvey could definitely get used to.

“What do you say we don’t tell them right away?”

Interesting, interesting. Harvey hums loudly.

“I notice you excluded Alex Williams from that proposition,” he points out.

“You don’t seriously think he’d be in on it,” Mike scoffs. “He’s been at the firm for about a month, what would he have to gain from us being together?”

“Well,” Harvey says, “how about this: Twenty bucks says Alex was in on it the whole time.”

Mike chuckles quietly. “You would,” he mutters, which Harvey elects to ignore. “Fine, and I’ll bet you _fifty_ bucks that this whole thing is why Rachel broke up with me in the first place.”

Harvey reaches out to clasp Mike’s hand, shaking it firmly. “Deal.”

Mike yanks him forward for another kiss, which Harvey tells himself he saw coming and merely chose not to prepare his footing for.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

\---

Most of the concerns Mike harbored about keeping his hands to himself during the day fly out the window when they arrive at the office and Louis storms them both with a huge case involving some guy named Howard Dekker, who’s apparently a huge deal in the world of finance, and his ex-partner Carolyn Olivet, who’s trying to do something to him involving blackmail or bribery or something but it’s hard to tell what because Louis is talking so fast. Harvey calms him with a reminder that Louis is, in fact, the financial genius of PSL and should be the one to head up the suit, which Louis parries with an insistence that Harvey come with him to the meeting he’s set up with Dekker for this afternoon and oh by the way it’s in Poughkeepsie, so let’s get going now now now.

Harvey leaves Mike in charge; as far as they can tell, Donna and Rachel don’t suspect a thing.

On Tuesday, they spend the car ride to work discussing the pros and cons of moving in together, and Mike stops at the cart on the corner to buy and eat a bagel so they can stagger their entrances. Harvey spends the majority of the day with Alex, discussing and sketching a draft of the contract Louis wants to present to Olivet as some kind of starting point in their negotiations, and Mike spends the day on the phone, working down a long list of businesses where PSL serves as council and which are engaged in a colorful variety of lawsuits.

On Wednesday, Alex pointedly recommends that Harvey consult Mike on the Dekker case, and Harvey anticipates becoming about twenty dollars richer by the end of business.

It’s not until after lunch, after he and Mike have, over an ill-advised game of catch, again taken up their conversation about cohabitating, that he’s certain of it.

“You!” Rachel snaps, storming into Mike’s office with her finger outstretched in his direction. He looks up at her perplexedly, nodding to Donna and Alex behind her.

“Me,” he agrees. Harvey watches with interest as Rachel’s mouth draws into a tight line.

“Date him,” she demands, pointing behind her back in Harvey’s general direction, and Harvey puts a miniscule amount of effort into trying not to smirk at her. “Please, for the love of god, do us all a favor and just… Why are you smiling like that.”

Mike doesn’t put any effort at all into stopping his own delighted grin, and Donna looks between them heatedly.

“What,” Rachel demands. “What happened.”

“Oh,” Mike says insolently, “nothing. I just won fifty bucks, is all.”

That little shit.

“Hang on,” Harvey defends himself. He’ll have his twenty dollars if it’s the last thing he does. “Alex, you were in on this?”

Alex takes on a proverbial deer-in-the-headlights expression, angling his body away from the turmoil mounting in front of him. “I…guess?” he ventures, and Harvey’s smirk widens.

“Thirty bucks,” he corrects Mike, tossing the baseball in his hand into the air and catching it overhand.

“Someone had better explain to me right now what’s going on,” Donna swears, narrowing her eyes furiously. Harvey spies Mike counting off on his fingers underneath his desk; as he raises the third finger, Donna puts her hands on her hips and Harvey nods at him surreptitiously.

“How long?” Donna asks, Rachel’s eyes widening and her fists clenching as Mike and Harvey adopt obnoxiously innocent expressions and look inquiringly at one another.

“Today’s Wednesday?” Mike presumes, and Harvey nods. “That’d make it four days?”

“Yeah,” Harvey agrees, “I guess it would.”

Mike hits the surface of his desk decisively. “Four days it is, then.”

“Wait a _minute,_ ” Rachel cuts in. “Mike, _why_ didn’t you tell me?”

“Harvey,” Donna accuses, “why didn’t you tell _me?_ ”

Harvey thinks he hears Alex say something about the code of conduct, but that’s so far beyond the scope of this situation that it barely registers at all.

“I think management is okay with it,” Mike says, as though Harvey might disagree.

He doesn’t.

“Filed the paperwork myself,” he lies. They’ll get to it eventually, if they remember.

Harvey isn’t entirely sure if Rachel’s expression reads more frustration or indigestion, but she excuses herself muttering something that sounds like “This whole fucking time” and is presumably the start of a long and well-earned rant. Donna glares at Harvey, her arm muscles quivering with tension as she points furiously at him.

“We’ll be discussing this later,” she informs him. “Take my word for it.”

Offering Mike a cold glare of his very own, she stalks out past Alex, who shifts uncomfortably and doesn’t look at either of them.

Harvey tosses the baseball between his hands a couple of times and decides to extend an olive branch.

“Have you finished drafting the Olivet contract?” he asks.

Alex clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says, as Harvey expected. “Did you need it for something?”

Harvey nods; now that Mike is in on the case with them, maybe they can move a little faster. “Have it on my desk in ten.”

Alex backs out of the room and nods as well.

“You got it.”

As he makes his escape, Harvey tosses the baseball to Mike.

“I think that worked out about as well as we could’ve expected.”

“Hm.” Mike returns the throw. “Don’t think you can get out of paying me just because you’re getting half my stuff.”

Grinning, Harvey spins the ball on his palm. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, rookie,” he warns as he lobs a shitty underhand pass.

Mike catches it and grins back.

“I would never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although she reported Harold’s and Mike’s settlement to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office, I don’t believe Allison Holt ever made any canonical mention of having friends at the DA; the reference stems from the fact that Diane Neal (who played Allison) also played ADA Casey Novak on _Law & Order: Special Victims Unit_ for seven season (5-9, 12, 13). Not to mention it conveniently explains away the fact that Harvey didn’t contact Alex when Bratton Gould was poaching attorneys from Pearson Hardman in season 2.
> 
> It’s Donna’s idea to send Harvey flowers, because it’s a traditional courtship thing, and Rachel’s idea to send cacti, because Mike and Harvey are weird. (The word she used was “unconventional.”)
> 
> Harvey and Mike’s romantic “work” dinner is at [Erminia](http://erminiarestaurant.com/).
> 
> Poughkeepsie is about a two hour drive from New York City.


End file.
